The Sopranos 4

It's the beginning of the end for poor Adriana (the stunningly good Drea de Matteo) who doesn't have the sense to tell Christopher the Feds are basically extorting her (I choose the word carefully). You really feel for her, particularly as the Sopranos have taken over her new Crazy Horse night club and proving that whatever they touch eventually turns to shit.

Best moment so far: almost parallel assassinations of Johnnie Sack and Ralphie, triggered by fat joke that gets out of hand.

Suicide of Gloria Trillo comes back to haunt Tony in one of those creepy deam sequences.

In an unusually sweet moment, Tony spends the night looking after his sick horse. With a goat.

Burton & Taylor (2013 Richard Laxton)

Written by William Ivory.

Found it difficult to get involved in this. Great though Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter are, I couldn't really get them as Burton & Taylor. However the 'exercise' scene is funny, and the climactic soul to soul is a standout: when Burton says "You know you need help" and her reply, an immediate, quiet "Yes" is ever so moving.

Also featured: Lenora Crichlow (who keeps popping up in everything), Greg Hicks, Stanley Townsend.

Why does BBC4 put all its drama budget into replaying the lives of former stars? Isn't there an original script being written anywhere? Where's Emeric Pressburger when you need him?

The Sopranos Season 3 (2001)

Season Three highlights:

FBI's attempt to plant a bug in the cellar.

A stolen leg.

The episode in the snow! (Writers: Tim van Patten and Terence Winter: the latter went on to create, write and even direct episodes of Boardwalk Empire. Directed by Steve Buscemi.)

Tony's latest gumar has been kept waiting for three hours. "If I wanted to be treated like shit, I'd get married." She ends up throwing a steak at his head. (She was in the process of preparing a London Broil, a North American dish in which the steak is cut into thin strips.)

The Sopranos

Ugatz! Great line from Tony: "You go to Italy, you lift some weights, you watch a movie. It's all a series of distractions until you die."

Junior: "She's like a woman with a Virginia ham under her arm crying the blues because she's got no bread."

Tony to AJ: "She knows that even if God is dead, you're still gonna kiss his ass."

Livia: "In the end, you die in your own arms."

"If she fell in a sewer she'd come up holding a gold watch in each hand."

Cunningly timed bursts of violence e.g. the assassination attempt on Christopher. Janice lets Richie Aprile hold a gun to her head when he's fucking her: "It's usually not loaded". Janice brilliantly despatches Richie, because he punches her. Quite right: she's a Soprano. Also, a useful moment in TV history, which has a tendency to portray a disproportionate amount of violence towards women from men. (And must have been a cathartic moment for actual domestic abuse sufferers.) Christopher and Furio dispose of the body: "It's going to be a while before I eat anything from Satriale's."

Series Two ends with memorable episode "Funhouse" (written by Chase and Todd Kessler) in which Tony has food poisoning and talks to a fish, to creaky background noises which are later explained.

David Chase is of course himself an Italian-American, born David DeCesare. He also suffered from depression and 'overbearing' parents.

There's something about watching The Sopranos that makes you want to behave more like a man, if that makes sense...

The Sopranos (1999 - 2007 created by David Chase)

Our house is now full of the colourful langauge of southern Italy. "Ffangul! Stugats! Maron! Mezzo Fanook!" (i.e. Go fuck yourself, Fuck it, Damn and Half Gay.)

We'd already been discussing a rerun of this epic of television history, triggered by visiting Napoli, ironically only a couple of weeks before James Gandolfini died. Despite the hot weather we are tearing into it, halfway through series two after only one weekend. It's still as fantastic as it ever was, one of the best things on American television ever (in part no doubt because it isn't television as we knew it, with its long game structure, film budgets and freedom from the restriction of writing strictly to ad breaks).

Carmella is one of the smartest people in it. Tony's family hails from Avellino near Napoli.

A flavour of the brilliant writing:

Dr. Melfi: "Did you steal my car and have it fixed?"

Tony: "Cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this."

Chris is talking to Paulie about character arcs. Paulie: "You know who else had an arc? Noah."

"Who's Captain Teebes?" (Tony, following a mishearing of Cap d'Antibes).

Tony on phone: "What have we got?"
Christopher: "Wet feet."

Silvio: "It's hard to raise kids in an information age."

Melfi: "Have you thought of having a prostate exam?"
Tony: "I don't even let anyone wag their finger in my face."
(She really laughs.)

Loved episode where Tony gets a 'kickstart' by almost being murdered. Great moment where Paulie and Silvio walk into hospital looking really mean (though both have a hug for the kids).

Tony Sirico and Steven Van Zandt

..and Michael Imperioli with Gandolfini seated.

They're really a sweet, lovely, murderous and cruel family aren't they? And it's this opposing pull that's at the heart of why The Sopranos is so forceful, painful, challenging and funny.

The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) (1963 Lucino Visconti)

Poor old Leopard. You sense he loves his Sicilia. And is prepared to unite with the rest of Italy for progress, even though it will mean change. Of course he loves his nice villa, and grand castle over at Donnafugata (which was, by the way, the inspiration for Sicilian wine producer Donnafugata's flagship red label, the Mille e Una Notte, which is very, very nice indeed). But he's also aware of the awful poverty. And the reason for it, which he shares with political emissary Don Diego (Howard Nelson Rubien), is that Sicilia has been nothing but a colony for 2500 years. Great civilisations have been hosted by it, but they've never managed to do anything independent. Now, everyone is tired, and wishes nothing more than to sleep.

It's a quite startling insight, particularly to a Siciliaphile like me, and one which makes poor old Leopard unhappy, which is why in the final 45 minute grand ball he looks more and more sad, and even sheds a tear at one point. He's also clearly thinking about his own death, but to the relief of Q & I, he makes it through the final reel.

Loved Ebert's observation about the ball: "..this long sequence in which almost none of the dialogue involves what is really happening." Derek Malcolm is also a fan, and cites the film as one of his personal best in A Century of Films.

The Leopard is of course Burt Lancaster and he has the perfect authority, but also the humanity, to realise the character of the Prince of Salina. We like him, particularly because he's a bit naughty, visiting his lady friend on the quiet, and being rather dismissive in a kindly way of his religious conscience Father Pirrone (nicely played by Romolo Valli), who needs a bath. The Prince's nephew, Tancredi (incidentally, the name of another fine red from Donnafugata), a dashing Alain Delon, runs off to join Garibaldi's men to fight for unification, then falls in love with Claudia Cardinale, a quite understandable thing to happen, particularly after she laughs so much at a dinner party that it embarrasses the other guests. This leads to the uniting (no doubt reflecting the film's main theme) of two families, one headed by an old-school but elegant aristocrat, the other by a wily, rich but unsophisticated Don Calogero Sedara, played by Paolo Stoppa, who wears the wrong sort of tails. (Sedara, by the way, is yet another excellent wine from Donnafugata. I think they must have liked the book or the film a lot!)

It is a long film and its three hours and five minutes require a lot of patience, because although a lot happens, it's more in the talky way. And looking back on it, all the scenes do need to be there, which is why Visconti was so pissed off with the American distributors when they cut most of an hour, provoking him to publish a criticism in the Sunday Times no less, in which he hoped for the return of Robespierre and the lopping off of some heads.

But things do happen slowly (apart from the Palermo battle scene, which is largely in long shot, and quite effective for that) and elegantly. Gorgeously, Giuseppe Rotunno is making the most of the locations, both inside and out (though we're still a way off Barry Lyndon in its use of real light of candles and fires) and it's scored by Nino Rota, so we know that is going to be equally good too.

It's one of those films that keeps coming back at you days later - and they're the best ones - with details like that Anubis-like dog that loves Tancredi, and the celebrated Colonel who seems full of bullshit. And how strong is Burt Lancaster's presence.

If, by the way, Tancredi's friend Count Cavriaghi, looks familiar, it's because he's played by Mario Girotti, better known to everyone but his mother as Terence Hill, from the comedy Spaghetti Westerns (e.g. My Name is Nobody).

It looks fabulous on Blu-Ray, except for the subtitles, which are often hard to read. And the glossy brochure seems not to offer an interview with Claudia Cardinale, after all.

The ruined castle at Santa Margherita Belice, Agrigento, was a favourite place of the novel's author Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010 Woody Allen & scr)

Instantly recognisable chamber piece morality tale, beautifully assembled with the usual moments of irony: especially the moment where Josh Brolin sees his ex (Naomi Watts) undressing in the apartment opposite, when up until this point he's been lusting for neighbour Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire, always in red) from the same view.

Watts herself is fixated on boss Antonio Banderas, though he's more interested in Anna Friel, and when she confronts him on the subject she is most embarrassingly turned down. Old fool Anthony Hopkins thinks his bread's been buttered by opportunistic, common call girl Lucy Punch (rather good), leaving his ex Gemma Jones to seek consolation with fraud fortune teller Pauline Collins. (Lucy apparently did the unmentionable by hugging Woody on the first day on set.)

An interesting selection of (largely classical) music rather than the usual jazz tracks; and he cleverly leaves all the tales unconcluded, letting us perhaps decide for a change what his characters will do next.

Shot by the sprightly 80-year old Vilmos Zsigmond, making the most of some of London's prettier locations in a quite unusual pallette. Note too the editing style; lots of fades between scenes rather than straight cuts.

Mon Meilleur Ami (2006 Patrice Leconte)

Callous art dealer Daniel Auteuil is challenged by co-owner Julie Gayet to produce a best friend, with a €200k  vase as the wager: cue trivia obsessed taxi driver Dany Boon.

Written by the prolific Patrice Leconte with Jérôme Tonnerre, from an idea by Olivier Dazat. Film is fun.

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949 Robert Hamer)

If there was ever a film which is the equivalent of the perfect Dry Martini, this is it.

It is the epitome of polite, drily funny black comedy, and if you didn't know anyone English you might think from it we are polite, ironic, unemotional, utterly eccentric and somewhat chilly. Did Chabrol see and love this film, because I bet he did both.

It is Dennis Price's best performance and he is perfectly suited to the drily funny dialogue (did I mention the dry humour? It's the Sahara Desert of humour.) For example one of the eight Alec Guinnesses he has to bump off offers him a choice of drinks from his disguised stash in dark room: "I think a small developer". Or this little gem: "It was hard to blame them, for weekends, like life, are short." Or "I must say he portrays the most extraordinary capacity for middle age that I've ever seen."

We all know how good Alec Guinness is but here he actually is all the old men he portrays, my favourite I think being the vicar.

Joan Greenwood is the woman in his life, and so is Valerie Hobson.

Shot by Douglas Slocombe, who in the scene in church featuring many superimposed Guinnesses had to sleep by the camera for fear that it would be moved and ruin the shot.

Ron Horniman wrote the source novel Israel Rank, which was adapted by Hamer and Jon Dighton.

Passport to Pimlico (1949 Henry Cornelius)

Because it was so hot, Q insisted we should watch the heat wave-themed Passport to Pimlico, joyfully scripted by T.E.B. Clarke and mischievously scored by Georges Auric, for Ealing Studios.

Was Miramont Place real?

Dress shop owner Nancy Gabrielle to P.C. Philip Stainton:
"What have I been up to?"
"Make me blush to guess."

And Nancy again, to her son: "You'll have a sweet and like it!"

There's a wonderfully edited argument between two loudspeakers on vans.

Stanley Holloway is married to Barbara Murray ("You never know when you're well off until you aren't") and their daughter Betty Warren ("you didn't go to the door like that?") is being wooed by the Duke of Burgundy Paul Dupuis, to the consternation of fishmonger Sydney Tafler, who is in turn in the eye of his assistant Jane Hylton, who resorts to flirting (a bit) with a young Charles Hawtrey.

John Slater, Raymond Huntley,  the irrepressible Margaret Rutherford and Radford & Wayne also feature.

Funny to note in the list of goods they search the underground train for is 'hashish and unrefined opium'!

Clever, anti-authoritarian, substantively British comedy must have gone down a storm on release.

A Canterbury Tale (1944 Powell & Pressburger)

Not one of their dead centre arrows, though should have been.

The film opens with medieval strollers on the Canterbury Road. In an audacious jump cut twenty years ahead of 2001, an eagle becomes a fighter plane.*

Then Sheila Sim, American Sgt John Sweet (his only film) and Dennis Price alight from a train in blacked out Chillingbourne, Kent, met by an even younger Charles Hawtrey than in Pimlico. P&P know how to use the blackout effectively, having done so in Contraband (1940), and so does the glue man, who promptly glues the girl's hair.

In the middle of the film, we get involved in an epic battle between two boys' armies. This is not a film like any other.

Wonderful sweet writing, particularly Powell's favourite scene by Pressburger in which the American and an Englishman (Edward Rigby) discover they have much in common over wood, and from where the phrase "You can't hurry an elm" came (and was oft-repeated between the pair at appropriate moments). Pressburger, an alien, was not allowed into Kent for the filming as it was too near the enemy, or something.

I particularly like the scene with Sim and Eric Portman in the long grass, and the final train journey into Canterbury, where Portman magically receives a halo, and the camera positions subtly change from a side angle to face on; blessings are received by all. The film says something about history and country like no other and is perhaps why it is so well-loved (enthusiasts hold an annual walking tour of the film's locations).

The trick shot where Sim almost faints may well have been appropriated by David Lean, who does something similar in Great Expectations.

Esmond Knight is the narrator, the man from Seven Sisters and the village idiot.

Beautifully shot by Erwin Hillier, who you can hear saying to Powell "Just five minutes more, Micky, there's some great clouds coming!" And the usual contributors: Alfred Junge (production design), Allan Gray (music) John Seabourne (editing).

* According to Erwin Hillier this was Pressburger's idea, quoted in "A Canterbury Tale" by Paul Tritton.

Mad Dogs 2 (2012 John Hawes)

Written by Cris Cole, though feels like schoolchildren were involved.

Philip Glenister, John Simm, Max Beesley and Mark Warren are fitly persued around Ibiza (actually still Mallorca) by nasty drugs gang, headed by David Warner (lovely to see you again, David).

We were going to start The Sopranos again but couldn't fucking find Season 1 anywhere!

I Walked with a Zombie (1943 Jacques Tourneur)

It's unavoidable. Give me a hot, late night, a glass of cognac and a spliff, and I'll be watching I Walked with a Zombie, a film I would defend as being worthy of the Top 100 title for its consumptive, rich, eerie and utterly oneiric atmosphere. Is it, to use William Boyd's great word, a work of febrile imagination? Or is it, to defer to Lewis Carroll, tulgey?

Words are no good. Let's consider the stripy, textured lighting of one undersung hero, J. Roy Hunt. Witness the magic of this simple light on / light off:

If that isn't enough to conjure up the correct mood, how about some dreamlike stairs shots?

Frances Dee and Tom Conway:

 

Not just stripes, textures:

Unforgettable night walk through the cotton fields conjures up Onibaba:

Dee with Christine Gordon...

...meeting Darby Jones

Rest of cast: James Ellison, Edith Barrett (Mrs Rand), Sir Lancelot (Trinidadian singer who lived until the age of 98).

The plot seems derived from Jane Eyre but has entirely its own twisty rule-book. Inez Wallace wrote the original story and it was adapted by Wilder's Berlin buddy Curt Siodmak, with Ardel Wray. It is my favourite of all the Val Lewton RKO horrors: Mark Robson was still editing then and the legendary Roy Webb wrote the music. If Roger Corman didn't have these strangely haunting films in mind when he produced his own series of horrors, I'd eat the hat I don't own. (He doesn't mention them in his autobiography 'How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime'.)